Leaping Ahead of Heidegger: Subjectivity and Intersubjectivity in Being and Time

Abstract

Heidegger’s accounts of Dasein’s dual nature as both individual and social in Being and Time have been a longstanding source of confusion and controversy in the literature. Many critics have been keen to identify contradictions between Heidegger’s positive account of the social nature of everyday Dasein and the putatively solipsistic account of authentic Dasein which comes later. This paper focuses on Heidegger’s brief attempts to sketch the outlines for the notion of something like authentic intersubjectivity. In doing so we will see where the temptation arises to read Heidegger as having failed to remain consistent but also how Heidegger himself is responsible for some of the confusion here.